THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

sounds like you live a blessed life, i still think you look like dean cain....

Separated at birth?

[stevie_bees]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

What makes you go "Woah!" when you see a guitar you like?

[LesStrat]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

T, or A?



















By that I mean, Tumbling, or Acrobatics.

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

What makes you go "Woah!" when you see a guitar you like?

I tend to like the look of a well worn guitar. Look at guitars like Clapton's "Blackie," Roy Buchanan's "Nancy" or SRV's "Number 1," and you can tell those guitars have been loved. I especially like the look of a worn fretboard.

By the same token, I love super-clean guitars that generally have a solid-colored body. There are a few bursts I like, especially vintage cherry, but I don't like translucents or tiger striping. I'm also a big fan of the dotless fretboard on such clean guitars. I've got a real thing for gold tops.

Ultimately, if it's a guitar I can visualize myself playing, that's the key.

T, or A?

By that I mean, Tumbling, or Acrobatics.

I'm definitely a "tumbling" man. While I dig nice "acrobatics," I find "tumbling" more of a turn-on.

That's what you were asking, right?

[DepecheMoses]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

If you could have any three wishes, what would they be?

As a follow-up, do you think you'd be extremely disappointed if the jinne who was to grant these wishes decided to only grant your second wish?

[B2D]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

What made you start playing guitar?

[Fulltone]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

Sorry, but:

What is worst... the holocaust or putting a floyd on a Les Paul?

In my defense it already came like that and it sounds great after a few upgrades!

[JustWendell]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

6 pages of well respected fun so far....glad to see this well thing is working.

What is the one question you are hoping to not get asked?

Do you have any advice for us young guys about guitar? about life?

Hypothetically speaking, somebody on this forum comes up with an amazing design for a sdugf tattoo--would you get it?

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

2 Qs:

If you could get a gift of getting the chops of one guitarist you love - to be able to play exactly like him (it's also a limitation) - who would it be?

Can you describe the signature tone you are trying to reach in words?

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

If you could have any three wishes, what would they be?

1. Eternal happiness for all beings
2. Eternal compassion among all beings
3. Eternal health for all beings

As a follow-up, do you think you'd be extremely disappointed if the jinne who was to grant these wishes decided to only grant your second wish?

Since they're wishes, I'd be psyched to get even part of one of those wishes. Genies don't make their way around here all that often.

What made you start playing guitar?

Sorry if I sound like a broken record here. Ace Frehley and Kiss as a whole were a big musical influence on me when I was young. I always knew I wanted to be in a rock band, and the instruments that interested me the most were the guitar and the drums.

I got a plastic toy guitar when I was five or six, and I used to play Alive II (Kiss' second live album) over and over in my bedroom, pretending to be Ace Frehley with that toy. Eventually, when I was at an age when other kids in my classroom started taking music lessons -- this may have been around age nine -- my parents offered to start me on acoustic guitar lessons. My older cousins had an acoustic they never played, so they gave that to me. It was huge for a nine-year-old, which made it difficult to play. Add to that a woefully uninspiring guitar teacher and study curriculum, and you get one bored and frustrated kid. I don't think I lasted even a year doing acoustic.

Fast-forward to my freshman year of high school -- age 14. At the start of the school year, a new music store had just opened downtown: Mercuri Music. Just as interested as ever in rock music, I now had a place right in town to walk around and gawk at real electric guitars. (The other music store, where I took my guitar lessons, had more orchestra and jazz band-type instruments such as violins, clarinets and trumpets.) Up to this point, I'd never actually seen an electric guitar, with the exception of the electric one of my older cousins had but never let me touch. (I'm not so sure he touched it all that often, either.)

This music store didn't have what you'd call a vast array of fine musical instruments, but they did have an assortment of Cort guitars -- anyone remember these? -- as well as a few Fender Squires and one true Fender Stratocaster. The Strat always stood on a floor stand at the top level of this multi-tiered stage area they had toward the back of the store. It was positively majestic to any kid who walked into that music store. The store owners took to me quickly, as I'd ride my bike there almost every afternoon just to drool. They'd let me pick up and play (unplugged) that guitar a little bit every now and again.

A kid a few years older than me worked in the back of the shop, performing various odd jobs that included doing guitar setups. He took a liking to me and, having a couple years of guitar-playing experience under his belt, decided to teach me a few rock riffs. The riff I remember the most, and probably the first one he taught me, was the intro to "Working Man," off Rush's first album. He didn't just show me what notes to play, he also went into the nuances of playing that riff: how different the same note can sound when played on this fret of the sixth string versus this fret of the fifth string, how to add vibrato (both along the string and along the frets), how to get your hand from one part of the neck to another part without making crazy string noises in the process…that sort of thing.

For Christmas that year (1985, I believe), my folks bought for me a Cort guitar and Gorilla amp. It was cheap equipment, but it was enough to propel me forward. I learned by ear the opening riff to "Black Sabbath" (off their first album of the same name), and played that and the "Working Man" riff over an over again for a couple weeks (much to my family's displeasure, I'm sure.) My cousin taught me about harmonics one day shortly thereafter -- the same cousin who had that electric guitar I mentioned -- and showed me the opening riff to Rush's "Red Barchetta." Man, that was cool.

I eventually upgraded my short-scale Cort to a full-size Kramer, and my Gorilla to a Rickenbacker Road amp. (You can find a pic of the Road amp here. As I recall, mine seemed to have fewer knobs, though I could be wrong.) From that point forward, the guitar, the amp and my cassette player, along with a healthy collection of current and classic rock tapes, became my best friend. I quickly got to learning riff upon riff, song upon song, all by ear. I can't imagine a better way of spending those first couple years with my guitar.

Perhaps my response is more than you expected. Sorry 'bout that.

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

What's your fav. Hockey team?

Although I'm not a huge hockey fan -- and given my last name, I feel a bit ashamed for not being much of a fan -- I've gotta root for the local boys, the Boston Bruins.

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

Man, I'm starting to see some really cool and thought-provoking questions.

6 pages of well respected fun so far....glad to see this well thing is working.

What is the one question you are hoping to not get asked?

I agree: Everyone's been respectful, yet the questions have been fun and often challenging. Keep it up, guys!

If I tell you the one question I'm hoping not to be asked, someone surely will ask it. Honestly, I can't think of anything I'm hoping not to get asked.

Do you have any advice for us young guys about guitar? about life?

For guitar advice, I'd say start with the list of dos and don'ts I posted earlier in the thread. I'd add to that this item: Start slowly and build your technique from there. It's easier to avoid bad habits when you start than it is to develop and unlearn them later on.

As for advice about life, that's a little trickier. I think my biggest piece of advice to younger folks and kids is to develop a strong sense of compassion. Humans are social creatures, and by nature we can get a heck of a lot more done if we are respectful of others. When you find yourself at odds with someone else, try to find within yourself the reasons why you may be feeling angry, upset, sad, frustrated, etc. Put yourself in the other person's shoes, and don't be quick to judge. Everyone's got a story behind who they are, and if you pay attention and listen, you may just learn something from them and about yourself.

Don't take yourself too seriously. Life needs to be enjoyed, and while it's good to challenge and fend for yourself, it's also good to lay back and relax, realizing that you're not perfect. And no matter how others may appear, nobody is perfect and everybody struggles with something at some time in their lives.

Try not to take things too personally, and realize that as long as you are okay with you, and you're being respectful of others, criticism from others will be much easier to deal with. Laugh at yourself. I do stupid stuff all the time, and I have to just shake my head, laugh, learn from it and move forward.

Realize that logic and emotion are two different worlds. It's easy for you or me to say or think these things, but feeling them and putting them into action in our lives can be a real challenge. Don't beat yourself up if you don't get it right the first, second, or even tenth time. At some point, you will get it right.

Listen to more Black Sabbath. However much you're listening to already is not enough.

Hypothetically speaking, somebody on this forum comes up with an amazing design for a sdugf tattoo--would you get it?

I'd have to see the design first, but I've never had a tattoo, so it'd have to strike a very personal chord for me to want to have that inked on my body for all my days.

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

If you could get a gift of getting the chops of one guitarist you love - to be able to play exactly like him (it's also a limitation) - who would it be?

Dizzam! Great but tough question.

:: several minutes later ::

I think I'd go with Joe Perry. That guy's got great chops, an excellent sense of phrasing, and a style that's at once both unique and classic. While I think Aerosmith's post-70s music is crap for the most part, Joe Perry is still Joe Perry. I suppose I have to give equal billing here to Brad Whitford, since half the stuff people think Perry's playing is actually coming from Whitford. Those guys rock it like nobody else. Freakin' dream team!

Honorable mentions go to Eric Johnson (although I'd use different tones), Angus Young, Roy Buchanan, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Jonny Greenwood and Edward Van Halen -- not necessarily in that order. I like guitarists who put a lot of emotion into their playing. But then, doesn't everyone?

Can you describe the signature tone you are trying to reach in words?

I'm going to try and describe both the tone and the style I'd like to achieve, since I have a difficult time separating the two.

I'm very impressed with the technical prowess of shredders -- the speed picking, legato style, sweeps, two-handed tapping…all those goodies. I'd love to have that level of skill at my disposal. That said, the ability to shred is not at the top of my list. I would much prefer to play music that sound more conversational and introspective. Perhaps "moody" is a better word to describe the sound and style I'm after.

I like a tone that has a sharp attack, twang, grit and natural compression. It's probably somewhere between Eddie Van Halen's brown sound and Albert Collins' ice pick. I've heard countless guitar tones that I absolutely love, but finding the one I can truly call "Keith's tone" has eluded me thus far. I like so many tones and styles, which is both a boon and a bane. Perhaps I'm a bit too fickle.

Am I answering the question the right way, or have I lost you? Let me know if you're looking for something different from your question.

[stevie_bees]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

Who would build your signature guitar, and what would its specs be?

[stevie_bees]

Re: THE WELL: For Real This Time...I'm an Open Book

One more for luck! When are you most content?